Casefile True Crime - Case 53: The East Area Rapist 1977 (Part 2)

Episode Date: May 20, 2017

[Part 2 of 5] By the start of 1977, panic had well and truly set in throughout Sacramento County as news of the East Area Rapist spread. Despite residents preparing for possible attacks and police forming a special task force, the perpetrator continued his crime spree unabated.  --- Researched and written by Anna Priestland Download the map of the attacks here For all credits and sources please visit casefilepodcast.com/case-53-east-area-rapist-1977-part-2

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We feel it's a very important story to cover, but it won't be suitable for all listeners, so please use your discretion. If you decide to keep listening, we will be releasing a map with each episode to help as you go along, or for you to refer to afterwards. You'll find a link to the map in the show notes on our website, or you should be able to access the link from the show notes in your app. On June 18th, 1976, the Sacramento Sheriff's Department responded to a break-in and rape of a young woman.

By the end of the year, there were ten attacks in total, all attributed to one serial offender, who the media dubbed the East Area Rapist. Detectives with the Sheriff's Department noticed the MO of the East Area Rapist fairly early on, but kept the information under wraps. They didn't want a state of panic. They didn't want a copycat, and they didn't want to alert the East Area Rapist that they were onto him. But by November 1976, the community started to become aware that a violent serial predator was walking in their streets. The Sacramento Sheriff's Department attended a local school meeting.

Their intention was general crime prevention, but as people questioned rumors of the rapes, they were forced to confirm that a serial rapist was at large. The police were shocked at the brazen nature of the attacks and the meticulous planning. The East Area Rapist moved through the community with military precision. He seemed to always know where the police were. Did he have a police radio? Did he have years in the force? Or was he just lucky?

He had no sense of fear. His level of bravado was rarely seen in criminal investigations. And he had only just gotten started. Music The Sacramento Sheriff's Department was dealing with the onset of panic washing over the city like a tidal wave by the end of 1976. It started small, but soon more and more neighborhoods got wind of the East Area Rapist. Husbands, boyfriends, fathers and brothers were instructing women on self-defense, giving them guns and knives for protection. Some started fitting bars to their windows.

Rumors were getting out of control. Some suggesting the East Area Rapist was attacking every hour. And others stating the East Area Rapist was breaking down front doors and tearing down windows. The reality was, he was stealth-like. Not many victims heard him until he was already in the house. The Sheriff's Department had to deal with a constant flurry of calls from the community, asking if these rumors were true. Parents talked to their daughters about personal safety and households set up emergency plans. But some questioned how much information was necessary to give their young daughters.

One mother said, quote, How much do you tell them? You don't want to build on fear, but maybe I should go into it further. I just don't know how detailed to get. When another resident was routinely cleaning her garage and thinking about the East Area Rapist, she became so frightened she ran inside and got a gun. After this, she encouraged other women in the neighborhood to help arrange a meeting so that women in the area could discuss ways to protect themselves. Groups of women arranged car patrols, and everyone who was aware of what was going on started taking more notice of people in the neighborhood. Anyone who was acting strangely or seemed out of place.

Very few men turned up to the early community meetings. One of the organizers had this to say, quote, Because rape had been swept under the cover for so long, our men didn't know how to handle it when it started happening near us. They've always been told that no woman is really raped, but the women are scared out here, really scared. Everybody is paranoid. We are going to inform our men. We are hoping they will come out to the meetings and see the fear in the women and work with us. Maybe when the rapist sees that we are not going to be terrorized, that we are going to get our men organized and facing.

By God, he will think before attacking another woman. Many people didn't even lock their doors in 1976, but this changed. Locksmiths discounted door locks and dead bolts, encouraging people to have better locking systems. Women living alone received offers from neighbors to fit locks on their doors. People got to know their neighbors a little better. Those who knew what was happening became more aware of their surroundings, but it was an age when not everyone heard news the day it happened. Many lived simple lives, and not everyone kept up with what was going on.

A lot of people in Sacramento were completely oblivious to the East Area Rapist. Most of those who were aware of the East Area Rapist lived in the immediate vicinity of prior attacks. Those neighborhoods rallied together. Some local home security stores in those areas had waiting lists of up to five weeks for home security alarms, but a lot of the other neighborhoods had little to no idea what was going on. A rape crisis clinic was formed in Sacramento. It proved to be an invaluable refuge for survivors of the East Area Rapist and survivors of other rapes. In 1976, the Sacramento Sheriff's Department investigated over 300 rape cases.

The majority were known offenders, not strangers in the night. Unreported rape cases were estimated to be at least double that. The crisis clinic was a place where survivors and their families could seek help, comfort, and have their questions answered, no matter how personal. Something they felt they weren't always able to get from police. People were aware of the early morning rapist and the copycat early bird rapist. Naturally, they questioned whether they were all related, especially since the early bird rapist had last attacked only months before the East Area Rapist started. But detectives by now had identified both the early morning and early bird rapists.

No arrests had been made, but both were being kept under surveillance. So detectives knew the East Area Rapist was in fact a separate, third serial rapist. And in the beginning of 1977, he was about to step it up a notch. The task force was busy putting bulletins up, conducting interviews, and continuing covert surveillance on suspects. The FBI requested a report to be presented to them at their local office. They wanted this guy caught, and all tears of law enforcement knew very well that if he wasn't, then it was likely to get worse. Captain Stam put Detective Shelby in touch with the security office for Pacific Bell and Telephone Company. The plan was to arrange a phone trace on two of the survivors' phones.

The trace would be able to determine where the incoming call was placed, but only if the receiver could keep the caller on the line long enough. The traces were arranged, but the East Area Rapist didn't call either survivor again. Shelby and Carol Daly teamed up as partners and continued to attend community meetings, which were by now being held on a regular basis. They attended to provide support and to answer questions from the scared and confused public. At one of these meetings, while Shelby and Daly were inside talking, they had other officers outside on foot and in vehicles. It was well known even then that some offenders liked to get close to an investigation,

either inserting themselves in searches or watching and attending things like town meetings. This resulted in several people who fit the description of the East Area Rapist things stopped and spoken to. Some names were marked down to be looked into closer, but it didn't result in any arrests. The East Area Rapist Samoa was now becoming clear. His prowling began at a distance. He liked to spend time in a neighborhood, getting to know the area. He likely chose a number of potential victims in the one area. He would prank call not only his chosen victim, but neighbors and other potential victims as well. Then he would circle closer, scoping the house of his chosen victim,

sometimes breaking in beforehand when no one was home, sometimes breaking into other homes nearby. He watched and waited for the right time. With victims being alone for the night or weekend of their attack, it showed the level of stalking he was capable of. In some cases, he was likely an e-shot of conversations or phone calls to know they would be home alone. In the other break-ins where no rapes or attempted rapes were committed, strange things of little value would be moved or taken. In the first 10 attacks, his ransacking of his victims' homes also resulted in hardly anything of value being taken. It was believed this was just a method to create more fear in the victim. It could have also been a reason to take a break, to build himself up to raping again.

He didn't always have sexual satisfaction during the rapes. The sexual element of the attacks was evident, but the level of control also appeared to be a major factor for the East Area Rapist. He thrived on being incomplete and utter control, and the instances where things slipped or didn't go according to plan were when he didn't cope with the situation. He nearly always threatened to kill in that whisper through clenched teeth. Over and over he would threaten, but he had rarely inflicted non-sexual physical injury. The small number of times he had physically injured someone non-sexually, such as when he punched one survivor in the face during attack 4. It was when he didn't have complete control of the situation. Attack 4 was an opportunistic attack, and it came shortly after attack 3, where his chosen target was able to escape.

The 10 attacks of 1976 were all carried out in two distinct clusters. Technically it was three suburbs, four attacks in Rancho Cordova, two in Citrus Heights, and four in Carmichael, which is including the two in Del Deo. Del Deo being a neighbourhood in Carmichael. If you look at the map, you will see that attacks 2 and 7 in Del Deo are very close to attacks 1, 3, 6 and 8 in Rancho Cordova. They are separated by the American River. If we move north to attacks 4 and 10 in the northern part of Carmichael, and attacks 5 and 9 in Citrus Heights, you will see they are also grouped very close together. So although technically it's three different suburbs, the attacks are in two very distinct areas. Attack number 11, the first attack of 1977, was the first to be carried out a little further west.

As far as the location goes, he hadn't gone far. He was still hugging the American River in an area called Glenbrook, just west of Rancho Cordova. It sat at the southern entry to the What Avenue Bridge. From early January in 1977, residents of Glenbrook started noticing a young man wandering around. In broad daylight, one day in early January, a man was seen coming out of someone's backyard. When asked what he was doing, he casually said he was just taking a shortcut. On another day in the same neighborhood, a man with a similar description was seen crouching in the bushes of another yard. On January 12th, a resident on that same street who had recently had a break-in, saw a man peering in the window of his next door neighbor.

He coughed loud enough to let the prowler know he was there. The prowler turned around and returned his gaze. He then calmly walked off. That same night, a woman on the same street stepped outside her front door. As she stood under her porch light, she saw a man walking across her front yard. When he saw her, he ran. The following evening, when she stepped back outside and went to put her porch light on, she discovered someone had removed the light from its socket. More than one person saw a blue car parked in that neighborhood with a young man sitting in the driver's seat. No one recognized him or the car.

All of the descriptions of the young man were similar. No older than late 20s. Slim or thin with a muscular build. Fightful eight to six feet tall. Around 170 pounds. He was seen in tennis shoes. One person noticed a tattoo on his upper right arm. Two described him with a neat 50s style haircut, combed neatly with the side part.

At the time, none of the incidents were reported to police. It wasn't until police came knocking on their doors asking questions later that these residents revealed seeing the young man. It's possible they weren't aware of the East Area Rapist. Or if they were, there's the chance that being a suburb over, they thought their neighborhood was safe. It wasn't. It was 8.30pm on Wednesday, the 19th of January, 1977, when a young woman and her son watched as a man walked from the street into the backyard of their house in Glenbrook. She went to the back window to see what it was doing.

The man was standing in her backyard staring directly at her. He took off like a rabbit, jumping over the fence into the neighbor's yard. His hair was sandy colored and neatly styled. He was wearing dark colored pants and a lightweight jacket. The woman said that if he didn't jump the fence like he had, if he had just walked away normally, she wouldn't have given it another thought. He just looked like a normal guy, like someone from her neighborhood. Just a few hours later, in a nearby house, a 25 year old woman who worked as a secretary in the state capital building downtown,

awoke to a flashlight beaming in her eyes and a knife at her throat. She wasn't usually home alone, but her husband was away on business. The East Area rapist broke a hole in her back window, reached in, removed the dowel that was holding it shut, then climbed through in silence. He quietly cut up a electrical cord and stashed it in his pocket before cutting the telephone line. With the flashlight in her face, she saw nothing else at first. Like previous attacks, he spoke with his teeth clenched in a whisper. Be quiet, I won't hurt you. All I want is your money, just your money, and I'll be gone.

He moved with a lighter way to get the cord and she saw he was wearing a dark ski mask. His gloves and clothing were dark and his jacket was a light ski jacket. The rest of his description was the same as previous attacks. He tied her hands behind her back tightly and blindfolded her with a bandana. The woman was five months pregnant. She heard him leave the room and start rummaging around the house. He opened her top kitchen drawer and went through the cutlery. He walked back into the bedroom and she could hear the pumping sound of a lotion bottle.

He then raped her. Like previous attacks, he left the room, continued ransacking the house, then returned and raped her again. At one point, while he was in the kitchen, he started eating. He remained in the house for four hours. Then the house fell silent. She heard the sound of her car revving in the garage and then he drove off and was gone. The survivor got herself free and after realizing her phone line had been cut, she ran to her neighbors for help. The Sacramento City Police Department had jurisdiction of this case, not the Sacramento Sheriff's Department.

It was the first time anyone from the Sacramento City Police Department attended an East Area rapist crime scene. They found the signatures that the Sheriff's Department knew all too well. But after consulting the Sheriff's Department, they soon realized he had done something which he hadn't done before. In the living room, they found a number of knives from the kitchen drawer. He had broken the blades off some of the knives and just left them in the living room. Like previous attacks, he had stolen some money. He had also stolen some jewellery of little significance and a digital clock. He cut the survivor out of a photo she was in with her husband.

At 5pm that day, the survivor's car was found parked outside an apartment complex just a few blocks away. Her keys were never found. Tennis shoot footprints were discovered at the driver's side door. This location showed all the hallmarks of previous attack locations, open spaces all around, with Glenbrook Park close by, Levy walks behind and close proximity to the bike path along the American River. These walks and open spaces made it easy to explore Glenbrook and go unnoticed. And right behind the survivor's house was a power pylon corridor. Essentially, a permanently undeveloped strip of land which you could walk to the American River,

then hit a trail and get to the What Avenue Bridge or further on. The city police set up their own task force, knowing full well they had not seen the end of the East Area Rapist. With the two departments now working on the case, it meant that more eyes were on the lookout. There were more investigators analysing the growing amount of information. That day, the Sacramento Bee newspaper reported on attack number 11. The residents of Glenbrook were alerted that the East Area Rapist had come to their neighbourhood. In the early hours of Monday, January 24th, 1977, a young woman who lived alone had gone to bed sometime after midnight. She lived in Citrus Heights, just east of the prior attacks there.

She had some friends over for a small party earlier that night. She was selling her house, so it was a good excuse to celebrate before getting ready to move. She awoke to the pull of someone yanking her arms back behind her back. She screamed and kicked to try and get him away, but it was of little use. He had hold of her tightly. He leaned in close and whispered, Scream again and I will kill you. She felt something sharp against the side of her neck.

This time it wasn't a large knife. It was a nice pick. He tied her up and blindfolded her. Her hands became numb almost instantly and struggling only made it worse. He walked in and out of the bedroom, raping her numerous times, ransacking the house in between rapes. At one point he undid her bindings, putting the string or rope into his pocket, only to pull out different material and re-tie her. He used her name more than once, but she was convinced that he had seen it on an envelope somewhere in the house.

She didn't believe that he really knew who she was. There were a couple of things that stuck in her mind about him. One was his odor. She described it as a strong personal smell and not a nice one. There was the unusually small penis he had, the excessive amount of lotion he used, and she was convinced that although he seemed adamant about raping her, he didn't really seem to enjoy it. He verbally abused her, growling at her through clenched teeth.

If he asked a question, he told her to shut up while she was trying to answer, just like he had done during previous attacks. Eventually the East Area Rapist stopped ransacking the house and it fell silent. The survivor waited a while before she realized he had left. She managed to get herself free and get out of the room. He hadn't cut her phone line, so she was able to call police. He had struck back in Sheriff's jurisdiction, and it wasn't long before patrol officers arrived, followed by Detective Shelby.

The survivor described the East Area Rapist as being between 30 and 40 years old, but police doubted this, seeing as her guest was on body and voice alone, so they stuck with previous descriptions. Detectives found two empty cores beer cans on the kitchen counter. They didn't belong to the victim. They were found near a large block of cheese with bites taken from it. Visible teeth marks could be seen. The survivor confirmed it was not there when she went to bed.

It was bagged with other evidence. Outside her side gate was open. They found both her garage door and her back sliding door pried. As this case was back in Shelby's jurisdiction, he was able to call the bloodhound back in. The dog traced the East Area Rapist sent from the house, around two corners, to the curb outside the local elementary school. At that time, the Sheriff's Department had three main suspects,

including Art Pinkton, who we spoke about in part one. Deputies had them under surveillance and were able to confirm that none of the suspects left their homes the night of this latest attack. The heavy body odor described by the survivor led the investigation team to wonder whether the East Area Rapist had a labor-intensive job during the day. They discussed amongst themselves the potential of him being in construction.

With his ability to open doors and windows with ease, the Bootsie War in earlier attacks and his slim athletic build. Plus all the homes which had been targeted to date were either for sale, near a house that was for sale, or near a house having construction work or renovations done. They were also still considering links to the military and possible links to the medical field, but they were all assumptions.

There was no solid evidence linking him to anything yet. As far as forensic evidence, so far they had the two latent fingerprints collected from attack 7. They had determined he was a non-secretar, and if he was the owner of the Band-Aid found at the scene of attack 10, then he was Blood Groob A. But they couldn't prove he was the owner of the Band-Aid. His physical description was concrete in some respects,

like his height, weight, build, and shoe size, but they had little to go on in terms of facial features and hair. On the rare occasions his face had been seen, there were conflicting reports or confusion. This could have been caused by him changing his hair colour, but it was impossible to know for sure. During a canvas of the neighbourhood of this latest attack, detectives spoke to two boys who lived on the same road as the survivor.

They walked to and from school together every day. For three of the four days prior, they had walked to the top of their road, and right at the corner where their school was, they had noticed a dark coloured American car. A man sat alone in the driver's seat. Each time the boys passed, the driver would turn away and look down as if he was doing something.

When Shelby went to the spot the boys described, he saw that it had a clear line of sight straight to the survivor's home. The foresail sign in her yard clearly visible. Shelby was convinced the man the boys had seen was the hysteria rapist. Shelby asked the boys and their parents if they would be willing to undergo hypnosis in the hope they would be able to provide a facial description. They agreed, but it never eventuated,

as they later changed their minds. Sketch artists began to produce facial composites from the witnesses who had seen the pre-aller in their neighbourhood, but none were released to the press. That wouldn't happen for a little while yet. The following day, the 25th of January, 1977, a phone call was made to the Sacramento television station KXTV. The caller informed the switchboard operator the name of the hysteria rapist.

The name was investigated by police, but it didn't amount to anything. Detective Shelby and Daly spoke with a woman who said she was being followed by a man driving her car. She was able to write down the license plate. Shelby and Daly visited the man's apartment. When questioned, the man admitted he had been following her. He even admitted to writing down her license plate

and going to the DMV to get her name and address. There was little Shelby and Daly could do but put this man on their watch list. It would be another 13 years in 1990 before stalking would be criminalised in the state of California. It was the first state in the US to introduce the law. Within three years, every other state followed suit, recognising the need for the stalking law. But in the 1970s, stalkers were pretty much free to do what they wanted.

Only when they physically harmed someone were police really able to do anything about it. It wasn't until 1994 that the Drivers Privacy Protection Act was introduced, stopping people from being able to walk into the DMV, pay a few dollars and get the name and address of anyone they liked. A few days after speaking to this admitted stalker, detectives were called to a local store. A customer had found a white envelope on the footpath.

The envelope was full of neatly cut out driver's licence photos. All women of different ages and races. Knowing that the East Area Rapist had often stolen victims' licences from their homes, this sparked the interest of detectives. But no prints were found on them, and without any other information on any of the women, it never went anywhere. It would be naïve to think the East Area Rapist was the only offender operating in the area. Law enforcement was well aware that stalking was more common than most people realised.

And during this time, when a report of stalking came in, police officers followed up urgently, looking for links to the East Area Rapist. With the East Area Rapist having crossed over into their jurisdiction with the attack in Glenbrook, the Sacramento Police Department was still operating their own task force. They had an agreement with the Sheriff's Department that if either received a call relating to the East Area Rapist, they would urgently notify the other. Officers from both departments became so entrenched in the investigation they worked a day and night, after hours, doing whatever they could to solve it.

Shelby was aware of how close he was coming to catching the East Area Rapist. He was sure he had seen him before, possibly crossed paths with him, or missed him by just seconds. He was going to give it everything he had. Lieutenant Root said Shelby was probably the most prolific and active member of the task force. At that time, two investigators from the Visalia Police Department visited the Sheriff's Department and offered their help. They had been involved in the investigation into the Visalia Ransacka, who was linked to over 90 home break-ins between 1974 and 1975. Visalia is just over 200 miles, or three hours south of Sacramento, and halfway between Sacramento and Los Angeles.

Shelby knew a fair bit about the Visalia Ransacka from when he was looking at the files of both the early bird and the early morning rapists. They had looked for similarities and cross-checked suspects. The Visalia Ransacka abruptly stopped his crimes in December 1975. Although he had ransacked over 90 homes, he had flown relatively under the radar, especially with the press, as he rarely stole anything of value, and he never physically harmed anyone for most of his spree. But that changed on September 11th, 1975. He broke into a house and attempted to kidnap a teenage girl from her bed. As he was dragging her outside, the girl's father came to her defence, but the Visalia Ransacka shot him dead.

A few months later, Detective William McGowan stopped the suspicious male. The male pulled out a gun, shot McGowan, and escaped. McGowan was fine. The bullet hit his flashlight and saved his life. But the Visalia Ransacka's crimes stopped that day. He was not linked to another break-in or attack again. He was also never identified. The East Area Rapist's first attack was six months later, three hours north in Sacramento. By 1977, it was clear there were some similarities between the Visalia Ransacka and the East Area Rapist.

Some detectives had suspicions they were the same man. They had similar physical descriptions, like height and agility, and both were described as physically fit white males in their 20s. Also, the MO of the Visalia Ransacka and the East Area Rapist was similar. Neither took anything of much value from the homes they broke into. Both were known to carry a firearm, both were known to carry a short club at times, and both committed hot-proud burglaries in the middle of the night. When the Visalia detectives arrived in Sacramento, they were a welcome addition to the investigation. But it was something that would later divide law enforcement, as some, including Shelby, were adamant the Visalia Ransacka and the East Area Rapist were not the same man. Not long after this, government officials decided that the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department would not be involved in investigations inside the jurisdiction of the Sacramento City Police.

The City Police Chief was told not to call the Sheriff's Department when their officers responded to a call related to the East Area Rapist. This annoyed Shelby and all at the Sheriff's Office who had worked hard and found a benefit in the two departments working together. Regardless of the new policy, both police departments continued to contact each other and still cooperated behind the scenes. When a suspect came to light only days later, the Sheriff's Department didn't have enough officers to camp out at the suspect's house. Shelby asked the Sacramento City officers for help, and they came. Both departments, regardless of what their superiors told them, continued to help each other. It was only by working together that on February 4th, 1977, they had a suspect in custody. Behind the scenes, the investigators still had their eyes on a few persons of interest.

These suspects were watched the day and night and after an East Area Rapist attack. If surveillance confirmed that the suspect had not moved from their home or work while the attack was being carried out, they were moved from the top of the suspect list. They were still monitored, just not as much. The suspect they arrested on February 4th came to light after a break in that somewhat fit the East Area Rapist's MO. It occurred in Orangevale, just one suburb southeast of Citrus Heights. A man broke in, bound and blindfolded a woman, but he didn't rape her. Although she was terrorized for quite a few hours, there appeared to be none of the telltale signatures that officers had grown accustomed to with the East Area Rapist. A fingerprint was lifted from the bedroom window where he gained entry, and a match was found.

A 24 year old man, 5 feet 9 inches tall, with light brown hair. This was the man the Sheriff's Department requested the help of the city police to affect the arrest. It was hard to deny the similarities between this suspect and the East Area Rapist, but he could not be linked to any of the attacks. He remained high on the suspect list, but was eventually eliminated from the East Area Rapist investigation. Another suspect came to light that month. A local California Highway Patrol officer had a daughter who worked as a waitress, often finishing work late at night. Her protective father sometimes waited outside her bar without her knowledge and would follow her home just to make sure she was safe. One night, as the father waited, he witnessed a car pull up and a man get out.

The man stood in the dark and watched his daughter get in her car. The Highway Patrol officer then watched as the man got back in his car and followed his daughter home. It's not known where the father followed the stranger to or exactly what information was handed over to investigators that night, but it was enough for them to be granted a search warrant. The man who followed the Highway Patrol officer's daughter was a preacher from a church in the top western corner of Carmichael. He was married with children. He was questioned and had hair and blood samples taken. It's unknown what explanation he gave for his behavior.

He was closely monitored, but he was also later eliminated from the East Area Rapist investigation. Around this time, the Sheriff's Department received a phone call. The female caller was aware of the East Area Rapist, but didn't call this information in straight away. After discussing it with her boyfriend, they decided they didn't want to get involved. She only felt compelled to call when she read further articles about the attacks. She told the Sheriff's Department, quote, At around 2 or 2.30 in the morning, I was stopped at a stop sign at Oak Crest and Dewey Drive. I looked to the left to check the traffic and saw a person wearing dark clothing and a ski mask crawling on his hands and knees towards the front door of a residence.

I looked to the right for traffic and when I looked back to the left, he was standing next to my car and knocking on my window, still with a mask on. It scared me. I mean really scared me. So I drove off real fast. I slowed down and watched out my rear view mirror and saw him go to some bushes and pull a bicycle out. He got on it and started riding toward me. So I drove off real fast. Another local couple were returning home after a walk when they saw three police cars drive by. Then they saw a person dressed in all black wearing a ski mask coming out from behind a bush in someone's front yard. The man didn't see the couple. The man walked out of the yard onto the road and watched the police cars drive off. Police were baffled by the amount of people who only came forward with sightings and information after they knocked on their doors because they had been an attack nearby.

The fact that this couple didn't phone the police shows the sentiment at the time. People were either scared to get involved, didn't want to hassle or they just simply had no idea what this man was capable of. A young woman lived with her husband, a Vietnam war veteran, and their six-year-old daughter in Citrus Heights, right near the northern tip of Carmichael. She was studying her masters in social science at Sacramento State College. They lived just around the corner from the exterior rapist's fourth attack, which occurred 10 months earlier on the woman who was at her parents' house doing washing. Their house, like all the houses on their stretch, backed onto the large Del Campo Park, and over the back fence jutting into the park was a public parking lot, which at the time could hold around six to ten cars. People often parked there to go walking in the park. The park also neighboured Del Campo High School. School kids often climbed to the fence near the parking lot. This couple were aware of the East Area Rapist, but police had still only released scarce details about the actual attacks, so things such as the hang-up calls and prowling behaviour beforehand weren't widely known.

Early in the morning of Monday, February 7th, 1977, the woman was having breakfast with her husband. He was about to leave for work, and their six-year-old daughter was still asleep. What they didn't know was that a neighbour who lived a few doors up was standing at her kitchen window, watching a man walk towards their house. He would later be described as being in his early twenties, five foot eleven, with a thin build and short dark blonde hair. He was walking casually in the direction of their home. The neighbour who was watching the man wasn't overly concerned, seeing as the park was so close. She thought he was probably just going for a walk in the park, but she still noticed him. She'd been spooked the day before when she was out in her yard with her husband. A man who was in the park behind them was staring at her, and every time she looked back at him, he seemed to start looking elsewhere. When he walked away, she noticed he had a walk she could only describe as awkward. She wondered if it was the same man she was seeing now. Back inside, the couple were finishing off their breakfast. The husband said he felt something was wrong. The woman put it down to his post-war instincts, or thought that maybe he was just unsettled because they had recently been broken into.

They had reported it to police, who came and checked the place out. Nothing of value was taken, so they didn't worry too much about it. Even when the woman started receiving prank calls after the break-in, she didn't think it was anything to concern the police about. Even though they knew about the East Area rapist, the couple didn't know anything about his ammo. As the husband exited the front door, he noticed the white van parked on its own in the neighbouring Del Campo Park parking lot. He called back to his wife to let her know, and told her to make sure all the doors were locked. She checked all the doors and windows, except for the back sliding door, which she assumed should still have been locked from the previous night. Five minutes after the husband left, the woman turned to see a figure in the doorway of her kitchen. He was wearing a dark coloured ski mask, with just his eyes showing and a slit for his mouth.

He was holding a four inch knife and a gun in his gloved hands. She would describe him as young, 23 at most, approximately 5 foot 11, and no more than 185 pounds. He was wearing black trousers, a waist length dark blue nylon sporty jacket, and red, white and blue tennis shoes. He growled through clenched teeth. Don't scream or I'll shoot you, I just want your money, I don't want to hurt you. He forced her into a chair and then pulled shoelaces from his pockets and tightly bound her wrists together. He held the knife to her throat. Do what I say or I'll kill you.

When he told her to get up and go to her bedroom, she started yelling no. He placed the gun at the side of her head and forced her to her bedroom. As they passed her daughter's bedroom down the hall, the woman noticed the door was closed. She knew it had been open earlier and realised the intruder had likely closed it. He threw her down on the bed and grabbed her ankles, but she thrashed around and tried to kick free. He held the knife to her throat and she stopped. But as soon as he moved the knife away and tried to tie her ankles again, she yelled, get the fuck out of here. She then yelled at her dog to get the intruder.

While trying to keep his gloved hand over her mouth, he struck her on the head. She ended up flat on her back with the East Area rapist sitting on top of her, telling her to shut up. She could feel his gun in his right hand jacket pocket. During the struggle, she managed to get the gun out of his pocket. They scuffled for some time, the knife in his hand hitting the side of her head at one point, cutting her. As they fought, the woman managed to get her thumb onto the trigger of the gun, but she didn't know which way it was facing. If she pulled the trigger, it could go through the bedroom wall into her daughter's bedroom. She wasn't taking that chance.

The East Area rapist was able to get the gun back, and then he started violently stabbing the mattress over and over again, right next to the woman's head. The East Area rapist's pants were off, and she noticed his legs were very white and covered in black hairs. She also noticed his unusually small penis. He was mad. He was able to tie her up, blindfold her, and gag her. She felt him run the edge of his knife over her. He raped her, then went rummaging and ransacking through drawers and cupboards, walking back into the bedroom to check on her regularly, like he always did. At one point, he saw the six-year-old girl walk past, sleepily.

He grabbed her. Be quiet, or I'll cut you up. He pushed her towards her mother's room and put her in the bed. The young girl started screaming out for help. The East Area rapist reached over, pulled the telephone from the wall, then left the house. It was sometime close to 8am. The next door neighbour saw a young man with short dark blonde hair, black pants, and a navy sporty jacket, jump her back fence, and go into Del Campo Park. Only a moment later, she heard the survivor cry out for help.

As the neighbour phoned at the sheriff's department, two high school students on their way to Del Campo High School saw a man of the exact same description running up the street, away from the direction of the survivor's house. Disappearing out of view towards the high school. A woman that lived across the road saw the man just before the high school students did, and took detectives along the route she had seen the man run. When detectives followed the trail, they found his exact tennis shoe prints, a few empty beer cans, and a few cigarette butts. From the witness accounts, it appeared that he had parked a car on the other side of the high school, far enough away not to raise any suspicion, allowing him to slip away from police for the 13th time. Because of the large amount of witness accounts surrounding this attack, enter the similar descriptions that had been given. A compass that was made by the Sacramento Sheriff's Department. There was still a fairly strict media hold on the case, so the sketch was not released.

It was believed that if the compass it was released, and it wasn't the East Area rapist, it may bring harm to an innocent man. It would be some months before a compass it would be released to the public. Although extremely frightened, the six year old daughter was unharmed. Detective Carol Daly was looking after the survivor and her daughter, discussing the protocol of going to the hospital to be checked out, and to have swabs taken to preserve any forensic evidence. Shelby attended the scene also. The survivor had a small cut on the top of her head, which was bleeding. As she recounted her story, detectives noticed that she also had a drop of blood lower down on her face, which didn't appear to be from the same injury. They cut a piece of bloodied hair from her head, and swabbed the other blood drop for testing.

The victim's blood type was easily extracted from the cut on her head. She was Type B. Most expected the second separate drop of blood would also come back as the victim's Type B. But it didn't. It came back Type A. That second blood drop wasn't the victim's. As well as being Type A, it also came back as a non-secreter. It was determined from semen samples the previous year that the East Area rapist was a non-secreter.

He was in the 15 to 20% of the population that carries the gene, which inhibits them from secreting tiny particles of blood in other body fluids. So detectives felt confident that if a suspect arose and they had the appropriate court order, they could now check the suspect's blood type and secreter status. With 34% of the population having an A blood type, and conservatively 20% of the population being non-secreters, only 6.8% of the population would come up as both. The net was wide, but the East Area rapist had a fairly unusual combination. They also felt more confident that the bloodied bandaid left on the picnic table at attack number 10 was left by the East Area rapist. But what was unknown in forensics in 1977 was that unfortunately someone is able to have both non-secreter and a secretive status at the same time. This meant that in the years that followed until this discovery was made, some suspects may have been falsely discounted based on secretive status.

Once the discovery that you could have both was made, suspects were placed back on the list for further checking where possible. Within hours of this latest attack, the Sacramento Bee covered the story with the little information given by police. It mentioned that the East Area rapist had gained access through an unlocked sliding glass door, which was true. However, the survivor was sure that door should have been locked, leading detectives to believe that he may have gained access to the house earlier in order to unlock the door, waiting for the husband to leave. Ten days later, in a cul-de-sac just over Highway 50 and only minutes south from attack number 11 in Glenbrook one month prior, a 19 year old man was returning home just before 10.30 at night. There was a school with a large open park across from his house. The street was quiet. He greeted his dad inside, just before hearing a crashing noise in the backyard. The father switched the backyard light on and they saw a young man who they described as around 20 years old, 5 foot 10 and around 170 pounds standing in the darkness of their backyard.

They bolted out the sliding door and chased the prowler as he ran down the side of their house towards the street. They followed him across the street and over a fence. As the son was at the top of the fence ready to jump down and continue to chase, he heard a gun cock. The prowler was waiting for him. As the bullet ripped through his stomach, he fell back off the fence onto his father, who dragged him away. They were both screaming and shouting for help. Within seconds, neighbors came to their aid and police were called. The area was cordoned off, but the prowler had slipped away. They located a 9mm shell casing. The 19 year old underwent surgery, but survived. The Sacramento Bee wrote about it the following day. The question was asked if this was the East Area Rapist. Detective Shelby had no doubt it was, believing he had been prowling for his next victim when he was chased. It was clear from past attacks that went faced with an unexpected situation. The East Area Rapist often didn't handle it well and acted violently.

The Sheriff's Department worked hard on predicting his next move, but wherever they placed their surveillance vehicles, the East Area Rapist always evaded them. He had a way of blending in so that he didn't raise suspicion, and it was only when he was caught by surprise prowling on someone's property that the community really seemed to notice him. It was likely to have spent weeks scoping out a neighborhood, working out the best route through the night across parks, pathways, levees and canal systems which linked to communities. Without a doubt, every home attacked had one of these geographical elements in its immediate vicinity. The task force was trying to put the pieces together. They had extensive notes on possible links to the military, hospitals and doctors, construction, real estate agents and houses for sale. The scope of the investigation was widening every day. On March 8th, 1977, one month after attack 13, the East Area Rapist had spent time stalking an area of East Sacramento he hadn't yet hit. A neighborhood between Robertson Avenue and Whitney Avenue, which borders Carmichael.

The areas of his previous attacks were likely too hot with police presence for him to risk going back. Five large blocks west of Carmichael was a neighborhood that suited his MO. It was linked by a narrow walking path tucked behind a long row of houses to another neighborhood. That path crossed the canal system and at the time ran alongside a wooded park area and a school with a running track. He could easily park his car at the end of the path and approach the streets hidden by countless means. At 3am that Tuesday morning, March 8th, a 37-year-old elementary school teacher was asleep. Her young son was staying over at a friend's house. She was separated from her husband, so was alone. She had been receiving hang-up calls for weeks. Every time she answered, the person on the other end would remain silent.

After a few moments, the caller would hang up. The calls had stopped a week earlier, so she didn't think any more of them. While she was sleeping, the East area rapist was sliding open her glass door at the back of the house. He had broken a small hole near the latch and was able to reach through and unlock it. Something he had successfully done before. It's difficult to determine exactly how many times he did this, given the amount of break-ins he committed in total. But it was enough that he had perfected it and was able to do it in complete silence. He crept through the house into her bedroom and stood silently at her side. Do you feel this butcher knife? The woman opened her eyes and felt a knife at her throat.

If you scream or do anything, I'll kill you. All I want is your money. I won't hurt you if you don't scream. He took both black and brown coloured shoelaces and wrapped them around the woman's wrist so tightly, she almost immediately felt her hands go numb. He gagged her with some fabric and blindfolded her. The survivor felt he got much more pleasure out of tying her up and having complete control over her, than he did from raping her. He walked out of the room and roamed the house, rummaging and ransacking as he went. He seemed as though he was pulling every drawer and cupboard open looking for something. But again, nothing of value was taken. Like previous attacks, there were many things of value he could have taken, but didn't.

She heard him go out to the patio and sit down for a while. Later, she heard him eating in the kitchen. Over a period of three hours, he roamed the house and repeatedly raped the survivor. At one point, he took her thumb and squeezed it tightly for no apparent reason. He also took his gloves off. It's believed it was only the second time he took his gloves off during an attack. After there was silence for long enough to think he was gone, the survivor got herself free and yelled to a neighbour for help. Shelby found a size 9 tennis shoe footprints both at the back door and at the bathroom window.

The ones at the bathroom were noted as being older prints and it was believed that they had been made some days earlier. A canvas of the neighbourhood was conducted. This would again show the East Area rapist had extensively prowled the area and planned this attack. Some neighbours had received hang-up calls for weeks in the lead-up. A few had seen a man fitting the East Area rapist's description acting suspiciously. But none had thought to call these in. Most had the attitude that it was no big deal or not sinister enough to bother the police with. Other neighbours described nights where their dogs barked, which was unusual.

At 6.30 that morning, the exact time the East Area rapist left the survivor's house, a neighbour saw a man fitting the description peering in the front window of another house. He was wearing a great jogging suit. On the street that runs parallel behind the survivor's house, a neighbour noticed a yellow pickup truck parked in the same spot for three nights in a row leading up to the attack. He saw the driver, a man he described as five foot nine in his twenties, walking into the front yard of a house, so he assumed he was just visiting someone. But this house was directly behind the survivor's house.

Another young girl on that same street said she saw the same pickup parked a few times even earlier than this in the weeks leading up. This time a canvas was done on the other side of the neighbourhood as well, where the nearby path leads to the other side of the school. On a closed off court on the other side of the school through a wooded area, residents told police that a yellow pickup truck had been seen parked there the past few days. The description of the yellow pickup truck was thought to be a late 40s, early 50s Ford. One of the residents remembered a partial licence plate and Shelby took it to the DMV.

A trace was done on every model of pickup truck from the 40s and 50s registered in the state of California. Officers all over the state were issued with details of registered owners of pickups matching the description, but it amounted to nothing. When looking into people who had close contact with the survivor of this latest attack, attack 14, Sergeant Bevin made two discoveries. One was that the preacher who followed the highway patrol officer's daughter home lived close by, and the other was that the milkman who delivered to the survivor's home lived very close to the previous attack, attack 13. When officers paid the milkman a visit, he told them that on the day of attack 13,

a window screen had been removed from his house. Again, there were nothing more than coincidences which led nowhere. In previous attacks, the use of the bloodhound had been vital in tracking the East Area rapist. As the bloodhound was getting old, a new dog was brought in, a German shepherd that belonged to one of the patrol officers. The dog led detectives to the front of her house on the corner of the street. They noticed the same tennis shoe prints in a concentrated area as if someone had been standing there a long while. There were old and new prints and a fair few cigarette butts. They knocked on the door of that house and were greeted by a young man.

The man showed them his hedge which spanned the front of his property. He and his mother had found a cloth bag hidden in the hedge a few weeks prior. Inside the bag was a pair of gloves, a small flashlight and a ski mask. They called the sheriff's office when they found the bag, but the officer they spoke to told them to throw it away, which they did. But they kept the flashlight as it seemed worth keeping. The young man gave detectives Shelby the flashlight. It was small and silver and held a single desized battery. He felt that it easily matched descriptions of flashlights used in previous attacks.

It didn't seem like a household style of flashlight, but it was unbranded, making it difficult to trace. Although this seemed like a great piece of evidence, no fingerprints were found on it and it was never able to be traced to a manufacturer. A few people described the flashlight as looking like something used by special forces or navigators working within the military. Shelby knew that at the time navigators were being trained at the local Mather Air Force Base, so it was one of the first places he took the flashlight. He found that it was not standard issue for navigators or anyone else. He did however discover that Mather Air Force Base had only just become responsible for training navigators one year earlier, January 1976. Air Force navigator trainees were moved from Texas to Mather. That same year, the Marine Corps transferred their Marine Aerial Navigator School trainees to the Mather Air Force Base.

They had previously been stationed just outside Irvine in Southern California. Irvine will come up later on. Also in 1976, the Navy established the Naval Air Training Unit at Mather. This naval unit, along with the Marines previously based in Irvine, were under their own command and not under the command of the Air Force. There could have been anywhere between 20 and 130 Marines and Naval Air Trainees stationed at Mather at the time. That day, the Sacramento Bee ran a story titled, Rape May Be Linked to Series. It said little more than other articles, stating a woman had been raped in her home and the Sheriff's Department felt it had been committed by the East Area Rapist. It included a simple map marked with X's showing the locations of the 14 attacks. The article mentioned one other thing, quote,

The rapist has never attacked while there was a man in the home. During the investigation of attack 14, detectives obtained a search warrant for a suspect they had reason to believe knew the survivor. The search was carried out by Sergeant Bevan's. The suspect was a photographer and had naked photographs of the survivor in his possession. The suspect told detectives he was hired to take the pictures, and it turned out he was telling the truth. There was just another lead that looked extremely promising, but turned out to be nothing more than coincidence. It was 4.15pm on Friday, March 18, 1977, when the operator at the Sacramento Sheriff's Office took a call. Sacramento Sheriff's Office cannot help you. I'm the East Side Rapist.

The line went dead. 15 minutes later, the phone rang again. Sacramento Sheriff's Office cannot help you. I'm the East Side Rapist. The caller started laughing before hanging up. 30 minutes later, at 5pm, another call. Sacramento Sheriff's Office cannot help you. I'm the East Side Rapist, and I have my next victim already stalked.

You guys can't stop me. The line went dead. The Sheriff's Department had no way of knowing if the phone calls were legitimate. They had no way to trace the calls, as they were too short in length. Around the same time, the Sheriff's Office received those calls. A 16-year-old girl in Rancho Cordova answered her home telephone. The male caller told her he was a roofer, and he needed to speak with her father. She told him her parents were away for the weekend, and she hung up the phone.

She thought about the hang-up calls her mother and sister had been getting for six months. One time recently, her mother was so angry when the prank caller rang that she blew a whistle into the receiver. Seeing as they hadn't had one of these calls for around a week, she didn't think any more of it, and went to her shift at the local KFC. Around an hour and a half before she got home from work, her neighbour noticed their dogs growling. Nearby, another teenage girl watched a strange man cross the road in front of her house and walk into a yard. She was spooked enough to close all her curtains and check the locks, but she never called police. After her shift at KFC, the 16-year-old girl returned home.

She only planned on being there briefly to pack her back. She was going over to her friend's house to stay the night. The front of her house was shaded by a huge tree, and with no street lights on her street, the front of her house was very dark. Behind her house, this opposite to hers, was the canal. That same part of the canal system went to the nearby location of Attack 6, which occurred five months earlier. The attack where the East Area rapist tied the clothesline back and forth across the hallway. That survivor was also a teenager whose father was away the night of the attack. They would have been receiving prank calls at the same time as each other.

It was also only minutes walk away from Attack 8. When she walked inside, she picked up the phone from the kitchen bench to call her friend. As she went to dial, a noise behind her stopped her. She turned to see a dark figure wearing a ski mask and a dark green jacket. But it wasn't the mask that she saw first. It was the small axe who was holding above his head. Don't scream or I'll kill you, the intruder said in a hoarse whisper. She froze.

He kept the axe above his head with one hand, his eyes fixed on her. With the other hand, he took the receiver and ripped the phone from the wall. He pushed her toward the living room and onto the floor. He bound her wrists behind her back with shoelaces. And when it was found later that her ankles were bound with a cord cut from the iron, it was clear he had been in the house before she arrived home that night. Using scissors he also got from the house, he cut strips from a towel. My car is only a block away.

If you don't do what I say, I will kill you. He blindfolded and gagged her. His actions not altering much from previous attacks. He drifted around to the house, rummaging and ransacking, then returned to the bedroom and raped her while taunting her with a pair of scissors. At one point she heard him go out the back sliding door, but he wasn't gone. He was doing something outside, possibly drinking a can of Dr Pepper which was found out there later. The phone in her parents room started ringing.

It seemed to ring forever, going until it rang out. The whole time it was ringing, the hysteria rapist stayed still on silent. The girl knew it would be her friend wondering where she was. The phone rang again. The hysteria rapist remained completely still while it rang out. When it rang out, he removed her gag. When is your family coming home? When she tried to answer, he told her to shut up.

He then bragged about the large size of his penis. Suddenly the doorbell rang. By now it was 11.40pm. The girl's friend had been the one calling, and after getting no answer, she went to check on her in person. When no one answered the doorbell, she started knocking furiously on the door. The hysteria rapist ran straight out the back door. The survivor then cried out for help. When Shelby and the team arrived, they felt they knew exactly what they would find, and they did.

Size 9 tennis shoe prints, a pried open garage door, a lotion bottle, empty cans, this time Dr Pepper. And again, nothing of value taken except the survivor's driver's license, a couple of her rings, and her sister's school ID card. Two local real estate signs were found lying in the backyard. The survivor described hearing a thud on her roof shortly after the hysteria rapist left her house. They checked the roof and found a jar of Vaseline that didn't belong to the household. They found the small axe discarded along the back fence. The axe belonged to the house. He would have grabbed it as he came in through the garage.

The German shepherd tracking dog was brought quickly to the scene. He followed the hysteria rapist sent to the street behind the survivor's house, up to a corner where it suddenly stopped. It appeared he may have parked a car there, as opposed to escaping via the canal. A neighborhood canvas revealed sightings of a vehicle on and off for the previous month. The vehicle was not known to the area, and it was seen parked in the exact same spot the dog lost the scent. It was a grey Chevy Bel Air from 66 or 67. During the attack, the hysteria rapist told the survivor his car was parked only a block away. It looked as though he was being truthful.

Other neighbors told police during their door knocks that they had seen a suspicious man in the area in the weeks leading up to the attack. One even saw a man with a stocking Avery's face. Other neighbors reported they too had been receiving hang-up calls. It started to seem like every second house had something suspicious to report, yet nothing had been reported at the time. Due to the mask, the survivor barely saw much of the hysteria rapist, but later she would give a description while under hypnosis. The holes in his ski mask were open enough that she saw his eyes. This description was used in conjunction with other descriptions to form the first composite released to the public a few months earlier. Under hypnosis, she described how his mouth was at the same level as her nose.

From this, they determined he was in fact 5 foot 9 to 5 foot 10. Detectives got to work on putting together all of the witness accounts and the information given by the survivor. They weren't surprised to learn the survivor's father was not expecting a call from a roofer. Further stories ran on the hysteria rapist after this latest attack. One headline from the Sacramento Bee read, East area locks itself up in fear as crime soars. The bee reiterated, quote, He has never attacked while there was a man in the home, although occasionally there have been children.

Those in the community who were still oblivious to what was happening were encouraged to get better locks for their doors and windows and told to start watching out. That weekend, a local hardware store sold 200 dead bolts. The survivor of attack 15 was shown a set of photos of known sex offenders as well as high school yearbooks from nearby schools. She had not seen much of the East area rapist, but she had seen his eyes and had some close up descriptions better than others up to that point. When flicking through the yearbooks, she stopped at a picture. She didn't necessarily think it was him, but she felt he looked similar. He graduated from Kennedy High School three years prior. With little else to go on, they looked into him closer.

His physical description matched. He lived right near Mayther Air Force Base, just south of Rancho Cordova. His father was based there. He liked to wear military clothing. While at high school, he was on the track team. He joined the Marines after school, only to be kicked out for stealing from a vending machine. He had relatives all over, very close to some of the other survivors' homes. This guy seemed to fit the East area rapist perfectly, but when they covertly took the teenage survivor to his workplace at a gas station,

she didn't feel it was him at all, and it didn't go any further. When this guy was arrested for a rape in Sacramento years later, he seemed to likely suspect again, but he was cleared from the East area rapist investigation. The links and similarities between this suspect and the East area rapist, like suspects before him, were uncanny, but time and time again, leads which seemed like sure things, fell flat. To date, there had been 15 attacks carried out by the East area rapist. He had remained relatively consistent with his MO,

with the exception of a few instances where he appeared panicked or caught off guard. The fact that he had struck on the night of the three phone calls made to the Sheriff's Department from someone claiming to be the East area rapist, showed it was highly likely he was the caller. He had toyed with the police that night, and now he was about to toy with the media. It seemed he had read their news reports and decided to show them it didn't matter who was in their house, women or men. He would take control of anyone, and if your husband or boyfriend was home, it made no difference. Things were about to change. Orangevale is one suburb southeast of Citrus Heights.

On the night of April 1st, 1977, a woman went to the local drive-in with her boyfriend and her eight-year-old daughter and a seven-year-old son. The couple both worked in the Kaiser Pharmacy at the medical centre close to Arden Arcade. The pharmacy was a fairway west of the woman's home, but it was very close to the location where the envelope full of cut-out female driver license photos was found. She had been receiving hang-up phone calls but thought nothing of it. The local papers had not reported anything about the hang-up phone calls, so women who were getting them had no idea how seriously they should have taken them.

They got home late from the drive-in and all went straight to bed. Sometime after 3am, the woman and her boyfriend woke to a bright flashing torch in her eyes. See the gun in my hand? Don't make a move. Turn over onto your stomachs. I have a 45 with 14 shots and two clips. They both froze in shock. There were white shoelaces neatly laid out on the bed. The East Area rapist ordered her to tie her boyfriend's wrists and ankles.

He grout at her to make the bindings tighter before taking over and doing it himself. He then tied the woman up. He said he would be gone in a few minutes if they did what he said. He then asked for money. The boyfriend told him where his wallet was. If you move, I'll kill you both, just like I did those people in Bakersfield. It was the second time he had mentioned Bakersfield during an attack. He then held the gun to the boyfriend's head.

Don't look up. If you see me, I'll have to kill you both. After I take the money, I'm going down to my camp on the American River. He left the bedroom. They heard him opening and closing drawers and cupboards before walking back into the bedroom. He didn't want to leave them together in the room in case they untied each other, so he said he was taking the woman with him. She felt something sharp in her back as he led her down towards the lounge room. He ordered her to lie down on her stomach and he walked off to the kitchen.

He came back with dishes from the kitchen and to place some on the woman's back. He told her if she moved, he would hear and he would come back and kill her. He then walked into the bedroom and did the same to the boyfriend, placing a cup and saucer on his back. He then returned to the woman. He asked her if she had had sex with her husband that night. She said no. He blindfolded her with a towel and raped her. Things happened the same as previous attacks.

In between the rapes, he ransacked the house and made something to eat. He asked her where the matches and a candle were and at one point he unplugged the heater and cut the cord to the TV. Both of the children stayed fast asleep in their beds and had no idea what was going on. The East Area Rapist never asked about them. She noticed his legs were scratchy, like they were shaved. Just before leaving, the East Area Rapist walked back into the bedroom. He stood next to the boyfriend and said, Next Place, Next Town.

Then he was gone. The boyfriend detected a hint of a German or similar accent when the East Area Rapist spoke. Even though he continued to speak through clenched teeth in a whisper, he was certain there was a hint of an accent. The boyfriend wasn't completely sure the East Area Rapist had left, so he spent the next 10 minutes wriggling the cup and saucer off his back without making a sound. Once it was off, he was able to untie himself and he shuffled silently down the hall to check on the children. He made his way to his girlfriend, who was still bound and blindfolded on the lounge room floor. It had been nearly two hours of terror.

Sometime between 4.30 and 5.00 that morning, just after the East Area Rapist left, a neighbour heard a small foreign vehicle circling the block several times. When Shelby arrived, he arranged for the German Shepherd to track. They tracked the scent of the East Area Rapist around the corner before it stopped at a curb. The spot was not directly in front of another resident's line of sight. It was a good position to get away quickly to other main roads. A neighbourhood canvas revealed a similar story. Unusual cars had been seen parked in the area.

The day before the attack, someone saw a grey station wagon go up and down a nearby street five times. There were more incidents of suspicious people and vehicle sightings in this case than there had been before, but not one was reported until the police came knocking after the attack. There were prowlers seen in yards matching the description of the East Area Rapist, a number of break-ins nearby which seemed unusual for the area. One man found a tennis shoe imprint on his fence and an empty meat wrapper in his yard. He had not given the meat to his dog, someone else had. Many had received hang-up calls including a woman and her two daughters

who had been receiving heavy breathing calls for months. There were sightings of a possible phony meter reader in the area. A young man dressed as a meter reader was seen looking suspiciously around yards. The utility company had no record of anyone working in the area at the time of these sightings. One woman out gardening saw a man in a grey jogging tracksuit crisscrossed the street, stopping and staring at each house. The man got a surprise when he realised he was being watched. He said good evening and walked quickly to a bluish grey car parked nearby and sped off.

She took down his number plate but lost it before police came knocking. Not one of these things was reported until after the attack already occurred. It was clear the community had no understanding of the warning signs of the East Area Rapist, but police felt if they told the public what to watch out for, there would be city-wide panic and it would hinder their chance of catching him. It was difficult to prove there was a link to the real estate market, seeing as sales and lettings were common everywhere in the developing area. But detectives found it hard to deny there was a strong connection.

It came up again in this case. The next door neighbour's house was for sale. There was no estate agent involved, just the owner's meeting and greeting potential buyers. The neighbours confirmed that a man stopped by to look at the house before the attack. He told them he was being transferred from Las Vegas to the McClellan Air Force Base. He fit the East Area Rapist's physical description perfectly. The East Area Rapist took his gloves off during attack 16 and the forensics team found a fingerprint on the victim's wrist.

The problem was they couldn't lift it. They sought the help of the FBI and learnt there could be a way to lift it. However, after a few attempts the method was scrapped, it was unsuccessful. The East Area Rapist also left chewed chewing gum in the kitchen at attack 16. It would take only two weeks for another couple to be targeted. In the early hours of April 15, 1977, this time in the far northern part of Carmichael, in the Crestview area, close to where he had struck twice before. Once two months prior, attack 13 in Citrus Heights

and attack four seven months prior in Carmichael. He knew the area well. Apart from the fact there were no children in this house, attack 17 mimicked the last attack. The woman had been receiving heavy breathing hang-up phone calls for three weeks. She awoke to a flashlight in her eyes. The East Area Rapist made her tie up a boyfriend. Just like in attack 16, he called the boyfriend husband, indicating he might not have stalked them well enough to know they weren't married.

He separated them, stacked dishes on them and told them he would kill them if he heard them move. The constant roaming, rummaging and ransacking of the house in between rapes continued and he ate in the kitchen. It was almost a carbon copy of attack 16. Twice the boyfriend had dropped the dishes off his back as his hands were in agony from being tied so tight. The first time the East Area Rapist pressed the gun to his head and said, you do that again and I'll kill you. The second time it happened he said, next time I'll kill her.

One unusual thing the East Area Rapist knew about this survivor was that she had codeine in the house. She'd had some dental work done and had a few tablets left in a bottle. At one point he demanded to know where the codeine was. She said he sounded desperate like a drug addict. He couldn't stop wondering how he knew she had codeine. He took them over to the sink and ran the water. It sounded like he had taken them and the bottle was found empty. But the next day a plastic bag with the wet codeine pills was found in the neighbour's yard.

When Shelby pulled up at the house the first thing he noticed was the real estate sign in the yard of the house across the road. It was for sale. It was currently unoccupied and strangely it was also unlocked. So he went in. In the laundry he found cigarette butts the same type he had seen before and tennis shoe prints. Enough to make Shelby think the person had spent a fair bit of time in that laundry. When he looked out the laundry window the line of sight took him straight to the survivor's house across the road. By now officers were on dedicated East Area Rapist task force shifts patrolling the streets at night looking for anything suspicious.

They were no longer just staking out known pockets of already hit neighbourhoods. Now they were cruising wide areas and on alert for relevant dispatch calls. Others were stationed on either side of main roads and highway 50 so they could pursue any car that contained a sole young male driver. It was just over two weeks before he struck again. May 3, 1977. Attack number 18. This time it would be the Sacramento City Police who would receive the call. Their second call to an East Area Rapist crime scene.

It was back on their turf and very close to the first attack in their area. Attack 11 at Glenbrook near the bridge south of the American River. It was the first time the East Area Rapist would attack a two story home. A woman, her husband and two children resided there. The woman was taking a course in real estate at the Sacramento City College. She also worked at May the Air Force Base. Her husband was an Air Force major there. About 1am Tuesday May 3rd she heard a thud outside.

She went and checked the windows and doors were locked then got back into bed with her husband. Their children were asleep down the hall. At 3am she awoke to find a figure in the doorway of the bedroom. He had a flashlight in one hand and a gun in the other. He shone the torch across the gun and whispered angrily it was a .45 caliber. He said if they moved he would kill everyone in the house. This time as he was making the woman bind her husband on the bed he kept repeating that he could kill them

and made a strange reference to having a camp across the levee. He also said that he got kicked out of the military. It was the first time that the East Area rapist took a sheet and covered up the man's head. He then placed a cup and saucer on his back. He said he wanted money for cocaine. The husband motioned to his wallet on the dresser. When the East Area rapist looked he seemed furious saying you better have more money or I'll kill you both.

The woman said there was more money in her purse upstairs in the kitchen area. Before leaving the bedroom he tied the husband's wrists tighter then put a jewellery box on his back along with the cup and saucer. He forced the woman upstairs with his gun pointed at her. The woman said he started shivering as if he was having drug withdrawals but it didn't seem legitimate to her. It was like an act. As they passed the upstairs bathroom near the kitchen

he made her lie on the floor outside the bathroom door while he tied her ankles tightly. He took a shower cap, put it over her face and left her for a few minutes. When he returned he tied her to the leg of the dining table while he wandered around the kitchen, rummaged through drawers and looked for food. Like previous attacks in between raping her he ransacked the house and ate. At one point he zipped up a bag in the kitchen. It sounded like he had put things inside it.

One time when he asked her for drugs she felt his voice was soft and clear and did not think he was whispering through clenched teeth. He checked on the husband numerous times but again didn't go near the sleeping children. Both the survivor and husband told police they felt like the East area rapist was acting during this attack. It seemed like the whole thing was scripted

and at times it even sounded like he was reading from a script. The requests for drugs and his shivering were an act in their opinion to make it seem like he was a drug addict. Again the survivor described him as having an unusually small penis. The Sacramento City Police brought in a tracking dog. The dog tracked the East area rapist sent to the levee walk directly behind the couple's home. In the levee police found a knife from the survivors home

and along the top of the levee they found two empty beer cans. When they canvassed the neighbourhood there were no surprises when they learned six nearby homes had been receiving hang-up calls and two had been broken into recently. Another neighbour reported finding a plastic bag that contained a pair of gloves and a flashlight hidden in a bush under her window.

Again nothing was reported until after the attack when police came knocking. It has been well recorded the amount of things that weren't reported to police. Some called boyfriends or male relatives instead to come to their aid with guns for protection. Others just didn't want to involve themselves. Some wanted to pretend it wasn't happening at all

and believed if they ignored the whole thing it would go away. While others simply just didn't put two and two together and realised the suspicious activities were related to the East area rapist. Less than 48 hours later he was ready to strike again. May 5, 1977 The neighbourhood of Winterbrook, Orangevale was one with lots of construction going on.

Houses were going up and much of the undeveloped land lay open. The East area rapist had been here before just a month earlier when he attacked two blocks away. Attack 16. There was a home which had just been purchased by a young man who worked for a stockbroker's office in downtown Sacramento. He had only moved in 10 days prior.

He was still relatively unpacked and he'd had no time to purchase curtains. He was waiting for his friend from work to visit for dinner and hang out while checking out his new place. He had met her six months earlier when she started at the same firm as a sales assistant. They were purely platonic. While the woman was driving towards his house

she had an uneasy feeling. The uneasiness stayed with her as she got out of her car with her two small dogs. When she put her dogs into the backyard they barked constantly as if someone was there. They also stayed very close to the back door. The pair chatted over dinner the uneasy feeling still remaining with the woman

but she thought that maybe it was just because the house felt open and exposed without curtains. At 12.15am the man walked her out to her car to go home. Her car was parked in the driveway right at the front door but when she walked out and put her dogs down they ran towards the front of the house barking. The East Area rapist stepped out from the shadows pointing a .45 calibre handgun directly at them.

Get back inside or I'll blow your brains out. Once inside he forced them onto the lounge room floor face down. The dogs ran in after them barking. This time he had black, blue and white shoelaces. He ordered the woman to tie up the man. They believed he was speaking through clenched teeth to appear mad like he was exaggerating a bit and his voice seemed naturally high pitched.

He repeatedly told them if they didn't follow his orders he would kill them. While the woman tied the male victims wrists she yelled at the dogs to be quiet fearing they would get them killed. The East Area rapist tied the man's wrists tighter making his wrists go numb. He told them he was only after money.

He ordered the woman to get up and lock her dogs in a bedroom. He followed closely behind her before forcing her back down onto the lounge room floor and tying her tightly. He cut the phone lines then collected dishes from the kitchen to stack on their backs. He threatened to kill them if they moved. He then went back to the kitchen

and started zipping something open and closed that's unknown if it was a bag or his jacket. He went through drawers and cupboards before going back to the lounge room to check on them. He was taking strange deep breaths which the male victim thought sounded like him trying to build up courage. The woman felt she heard a slight accent. He forced the woman up, held a knife to her throat

and pushed her into the bathroom near the kitchen. He forced her down and blindfolded her. He then heard him lubricating himself with lotion. He better swear to God you didn't see a van down the street. He repeated that line to her three times. He never took his gloves off during any of the three times he raped her. He ransacked the house between rapes. At one point he walked into the bathroom

and said she was not to make a sound while he was eating and drinking or he would kill her. He was then heard going into the kitchen and opening the refrigerator. After that, the house fell silent. They knew he was gone. After breaking free, the male victim ran to the neighbours for help. When detectives examined the crime scene they found foot scuff marks on the trunk of the large oak tree

next to the living room window. There were tennis shoe prints underneath. Empty beer cans were found at the back door and a piece of chewing gum found thrown into a clothes basket in the laundry. There was a knife located behind the sofa. The theory with this attack was that the East area rapist planned to strike elsewhere. Possibly his chosen victims weren't home.

He then came across this house. It's believed to be an opportunistic attack due to the fact the survivor was only visiting and wouldn't usually have been there. Detectives found a Zippo lighter in the bedroom which did not belong to either victim. Although Zippos were available to the public they also went hand in hand with the army

especially around the time of the Vietnam War. The Zippo lighter indicated a possible military link again. Although the method didn't work for them since the day they discovered they could possibly lift touch fingerprints off skin the East area rapist hadn't taken his gloves off again. Shelby had requested that all patrol officers not discuss this on their police radios but he found that some had not listened to him and there had been chatter about this process over the airwaves.

That's when it was considered he may have a police radio if he didn't have ears inside the force that is. That day the Sacramento Bee reported on the latest attack, attack 19, as well as attack 18 that occurred only two days prior. It was apparent that the East area rapist was reading the papers. Since the Sacramento Bee reported that he only attacked when women were home alone or with children he had specifically targeted houses where there was a man home.

There was only nine days until he struck again. In the two weeks leading up to this next attack attack 20 which occurred on May 14th, 1977 there was one road which had an unprecedented amount of suspicious sightings of a man fitting the description of the East area rapist. It was Merlandale Drive in Citrus Heights. A young girl and her brother spotted a man hiding in the bushes on the street. When he realized they had seen him the man ran off

jumping fences until he was out of sight. At 12.45am May 13th a couple on the street heard someone on their roof then the neighbors dog started barking. They immediately rang the sheriff's department. Just after they hung up their neighbor rang them to say someone was walking around on their roof. They were pleased to hear that a squad car was on its way. The police arrived in five minutes but the roof prowler was gone.

Within an hour of the police leaving someone tried to pry open the neighbors door but they were unsuccessful. The police weren't called back. Another woman nearby heard noises in her garage. She was too scared to go check it out and again police weren't called. At 6.30am later that morning the prowler was still around. A woman saw a strange man fitting the East area rapist's description in the same street.

She was well aware of the East area rapist and she immediately called the police. By the time they arrived he was gone. That evening around 6.30pm a woman saw an older black car with a sole male driver parked suspiciously. It appeared that the man inside was wearing an old brown uniform of some description. She thought the car looked like an old cop car and assumed there may have been a stakeout going on. But it wasn't a cop car.

There was no stakeout happening. A young couple from out of town had just bought a house on Merlandale Drive Citrus Heights. She was a waitress and he was a restaurant manager. From the day they moved in the woman had been receiving hang up calls and only recently they saw a strange man in their backyard. At 3.15am May 14th the couple woke to a dark figure in their bedroom doorway. His head covered in a nylon stocking. The first time he was seen in this type of mask.

He shone a flashlight into their eyes. You make a sound and I'll kill you. I'll have a 45 and I'll kill you if you move. I'm going to take your money and I want some food. Then I'll leave in my van. He forced them onto their stomachs and did exactly what he had done during previous attacks. He did however say slightly different things. I'm going to take you in the van with me.

How would you like to be in the river? He also specifically mentioned food. Only in the last few attacks did he actually mention food as opposed to just going to the fridge and getting it. Other than that everything happened as per previous attacks. It appears he may have been telling the truth about having a van. At 5.20am which is right about the time he fled the house a local paper boy saw a van speed away from the area.

It was blue and the paintwork looked like it had been sanded back. When police were at the scene speaking with the survivor a woman who lived nearby approached them. She was the person who sold the house to the survivor and her partner. It had only been weeks since she herself had lived there. She told police that she was receiving hang up calls for weeks before she moved out and when she moved out of the house into a new place around the corner the calls continued despite the fact she had a new number.

While she was selling the house she had it open for local real estate agents to come through. On one particular day a young man who she now realised to fit the description of the East Area rapist walked in without an appointment which for an agent is a strange thing to do. He introduced himself as Frank William Dubbins Jr. For an estate agent his car was unusually old and beat up. When he told her the real estate company he worked for she felt it was odd because agents from that firm had already been to the house twice.

When he walked around he didn't look at the usual things she expected. He looked at the windows and the questions he asked were more about her husband and daughter than about the house. She frightened her but she didn't report it until after this latest attack. Attack number 21 occurred just three days later. His target was an Italian-American family who lived in the Del Deo neighborhood of Carmichael. Close by to attack number 2 and attack number 7. The husband's father was visiting from Italy at the time.

A couple of weeks earlier the couple found two BB pellets had been shot through one of their windows. They thought it was odd but put it down to kids. Then they found a part of their garage door had been pried at the top making it almost impossible to open. The strange thing about the place of the prying was that if you were familiar with that make of garage door then you would know there is a place at the top where you could slip in a tool and get the door to open. It seemed to them that the person knew this but was unsuccessful. They reported it to the sheriff's department but heard nothing more about it. In the days leading up to the attack the woman saw a man outside her kitchen window.

He was on her neighbor's lawn carrying something. He then disappeared down the side of the neighbor's house. Others also saw a man wandering around at the neighborhood looking at the front of people's houses that same week. In the lead up a man was seen shining a flashlight near the victim's home. A brown dodged charger was seen parked nearby. No one recognized the car but no one called the police or approached the victims to check if what they saw was unusual. At 1.30am a hand gently pried the lock on the patio door to the victim's bedroom. The east area rapist silently crept in.

Elsewhere in the house two children were asleep as was their visiting grandfather. The husband woke and noticed the figure. This family knew all about the east area rapist and this husband knew instantly what was happening. He pretended to be asleep. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Look at me.

Look at me. Do you hear me? The woman woke as he shone his flashlight into her eyes. In the other hand he had a gun. He was wearing a beige ski mask and brown leather gloves with slits at the sides. His shoes seemed very heavy and they squeaked as he walked. The woman pulled the sheet up over her head and started yelling to her husband. The husband went to get up but the east area rapist shone the flashlight in his eyes.

Sit down. The east area rapist forced them onto their stomachs and they were tied up the same as previous attacks. He forced the woman to tie her husband up first. Then he retied him before tying up the woman. The husband went to say something. Shut up. If you say one more thing I'll... She's dead.

She's dead. The east area rapist reopened at the patio door and it sounded like he was rummaging through a toolbox. He walked back in the bedroom holding what appeared to be a money box. He rested it on the husband's back. He was taking deep breaths. He told them he was going to fix himself some food. If I hear anything I'll kill everyone in the house and I'll leave into the night. He left the bedroom for about 30 minutes.

When he returned he demanded money. The woman said her purse was in the kitchen. He forced her up and took her with him. She showed him the purse and he shoved her towards the lounge room. She noticed he had taken a rug and draped it over a lamp, creating dull soft lighting. He forced her onto her stomach and retied her wrists and ankles so tightly she felt them going numb. The east area rapist appeared more angry during this attack, calling her by name and threatening to kill her over and over as he prepared to rape her.

When he stopped he returned to the kitchen to eat. He then told her he was going to get some food and beer and go into the backyard to eat for an hour. He stacked plates on her back. He leaned in and whispered that if the plates rattled he would come back and kill for the first time. When he returned he said the following. He seemed excited and stuttered his words a little bit. Those fuckers, those fuckers, those pigs. I've never killed before but I'm going to now.

Listen, do you hear me? I want you to tell those fuckers, those pigs. I'm going to go home to my apartment. I have bunches of televisions. I'm going to listen to the radio and watch television. If I hear about this, I'm going to go out tomorrow night and kill two people. People are going to die. He then walked directly to the husband, leaned down and whispered angrily.

You'd tell those fucking pigs that I could have killed two people tonight. If I don't see that all over the papers and television, I'll kill two people tomorrow night. Then there was silence. When the woman heard her husband call out for his father in Italian, she knew the ordeal was over. The dog was able to track the East Area rapists sent through the survivor's property to the side gate, then along the road to a small closed off street two blocks away. Detectives had no doubt he had a car parked there. They found the house in the same condition that they had grown accustomed to.

It had been ransacked, there were empty beer cans left behind and partially eaten packets of crackers in the backyard. The first thing Shelby saw when he arrived was the for sale sign in the yard of a nearby house. There was also a school across the road, Del Deo Elementary School. Shelby had been there the year before for the parents meeting on crime prevention, the one where residents first started asking questions about a possible serial rapist. When Shelby walked inside he was introduced to the survivor's husband. He realized immediately who he was.

He was the man who stood up at that town hall meeting seven months prior at Del Deo Elementary School, the one who paced up and down yelling that no man would stand by and let his wife be raped. He for one certainly wouldn't. Was the East Area rapist at that meeting? The next day police debated whether or not to hold a press conference. It was clear they were no longer able to keep quiet and give brief details about the rapist. He had now attacked 21 times. But they didn't know what to do.

The survivor stated that the East Area rapist told her if he heard about the attack on radio or television, he would kill two people the next night. But her husband was adamant the East Area rapist said the opposite. He would kill two people if he didn't see it all over the papers and television. They had conflicting versions and they weren't sure what to do. To be continued next week. .